SINKING SHIP

Republicans Confronted With Grim New Fear After Trump Rout

Any successor nominated by Trump may be tainted by the scale of the GOP’s midterm defeat.

Top Republicans fear the scale of the party’s defeat in the midterms means that they’ll need to look outside Trump’s circle for a 2028 candidate.

Semafor spoke to half a dozen Republicans in the wake of the Republican defeat, which saw Democrats seize control of both Houses of Congress, and they doubted voters would embrace any successor chosen by Trump.

Vice President JD Vance, long touted as the most likely candidate to succeed Trump, took a swipe at the president’s election strategy in a post on X on Wednesday, blaming the result on the Iran war in an apparent bid to distance himself from the fallout.

“The biggest loser Tuesday night, heading into 2028, was JD Vance,” one Republican strategist told the outlet. “2028 shifted from a conversation about who could carry the torch of Trumpism, to who can rebuild the movement from shambles.”

“It’s an open race, no question about it,” another person close to the White House told Semafor about the 2028 race.

The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment.

Other key figures close to Trump, long touted as potential successors, have emerged tainted from the Iran war debacle. They include Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who has long defended U.S. involvement in the conflict. The White House and State Department pushed back against a report in The Independent on Thursday claiming Rubio was planning to step down to distance himself from the war and improve his chances in 2028, dismissing it as “baseless.”

BIG BROTHER

White House Busted Freaking Out at MAGA Enemies Within

Vic Verbalaitis

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has also reportedly touted running for the White House, but his political fortunes appear to have been badly damaged by the war. Some Republicans are said to be seeking to impeach him for his role in persuading the president to enter the conflict with no exit plan.

Top Republicans discussed as Trump successors, and not serving in the Cabinet, include Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who challenged Trump in the 2024 Republican primaries and was resoundingly defeated.

Play Video

Other names in the running include Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who was scathing about the scale of Republican defeats in the midterms, but faces headwinds in his home state, where Democrats won key midterm races for the first time in decades. Chris Christie, the former New Jersey Governor and Trump adviser, has also declared ambitions to run for the presidency again.

For his part, Trump seemed in no mood to discuss possible successors in remarks to reporters in the White House just ahead of the midterms, saying, “I don’t think we’ve ever talked about it,” when asked if he saw Vance as his successor.

See more of our coverage in your search results.

ADD THE DAILY BEAST ON GOOGLE

Tom PorterBreaking News Reporter

Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast here.